European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. Every percentage increase we save is equivalent to well over £100 million. The failure there has been—for a long time, frankly—over this issue is twofold: a failure to take the budget issue seriously enough and, secondly, a failure to have transparency and therefore to have the information about the EU budget out there so that citizens in Europe can really complain about the inflated salaries and allowances. Let me give just one example: civil servants who have been in Brussels for 30 years are still paid generous expatriate allowances. That is the sort of excess that we have got to deal with.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister seems to have great faith in protocol 15. I also noted that he did not really answer the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), and I am beginning to wonder something: has the Prime Minister ever actually read the Lisbon treaty from page one to page—to the end. If so, when?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the many contributions to public life that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) made after making that remark is that all future Front Benchers, probably on either side of the House, will carefully read every treaty and get to the end.